life is like a...

welcome to my basic life update...

gym: still going. still liking it. having many sessions in which i feel like giving up, then throwing up, then quitting, then crying, then dying...but i keep going and then am really sore for the next two days, but it's good. i have noticed a marked improvement in my energy levels over the last couple of weeks. also, i got a swimming suit and go in the jacuzzi after my workouts to help ease the soreness. today vesta went with me and we swam laps in the pool, as well. that was really nice.

crafting: this is a real challenge for me right now. rodney keeps saying he's going to make time for me to do what i need to do, but he rarely does. he's busy with school and homework and blahblahblah. it's really, really frustrating. i wish i had somewhere to put jubal for a couple of hours a few times a week. somewhere that costs nothing and involves trusted individuals that jubal already knows and loves. too bad i'm a social retard with no friends.

the kids: vesta is doing pretty well. she has recently taken up knitting and is getting fairly good. she's still really into music, though her exposure is pretty limited--as far as i can tell her two favorite groups are the beatles and the decemberists. vesta's big news is that she recently went to california to visit devon and layla and had a smashingly great time.
hazel is really fun right now. she loves to help in the kitchen and often helps me with the granola making or cookie baking. her artwork is getting really good, she has a unique style that i think is awesome and i personally enjoy quite a bit. she's into drawing trees and owls and nests and bats right now.
they are both also a bit hormonal, which is interesting and leaves one cringing at thoughts of full-on puberty and teen-age hood. ugh.
jubal is wonderful! he's got a mouthful of teeth. his favorite thing to chew on with those teeth is meat--just like his daddy. a familiar cry at dinnertime is MEAT! (cry as in "cried out" not waaaa waaaa). he's getting some more words and they're making more sense, but he also adds more and more seemingly nonsense words--well, that's not right, because they mean something, but they are just jubalese rather than english...for instance "nana" means anything tasty to eat. he is peeing more and more on the pot and started wearing training pants today. so exciting. also, we trimmed his bangs, but left the curls in back. everyone still thinks he's a girl.

good books: just a couple-few honorable mentions...the art of racing in the rain by garth stein. it's touching and sweet and a good story, that manages to be told well despite (and even because of!) the fact that it is narrated by a dog (which would normally spell doom for a story). just after sunset by stephen king. i love stephen king because he is a genuinely talented writer. he's the only "horror" writer that i read, because his characters are so damn good, and he is so chilling and so funny, and so on-the-nose about humanity. it's not literary, per say, but it's darn good writing. just after sunset is a book of short stories, some of the gems are "the gingerbread girl", "stationary bike", "N", and "a very tight place". and lastly, the ghost in love by jonathan carroll. what an interesting story about people and our emotions. the premise is a man who doesn't die when he's supposed to, the ghost that comes to take his place and finds he's still in it, and what happens because of all THAT...but it's really about feelings and people and love.

and jubal is here to let me know that it's nap time and i have to get off this computer or he'll revolt. so i'll respect that.

i am grateful for:

the gym!
the new broadband (it's like a miracle)
canned salmon
help
neil gaiman (the girls and i are reading the graveyard book right now and it's great)

it's starting to feel like a new year

the big news today is that i went back to the gym yesterday. rodney hadn't been going for a while because of his shoulder injury and then finances, but recently started going again--to ironworks in creswell. he offered me the chance to go with him, and they have a daycare room that customers can use--during certain hours there are mothers manning (or womanning, heh) the room, but the rest of the time it's available for people who have children old enough to manage themselves (and in our case their little brothers). so, i went. it was good. i rode the recumbent bike for 20 minutes to warm up, then rodney had me pick a muscle group to work on (biceps and triceps) and he gave me a series of exercises to do with the weights and various machines. it was three different tasks for each of the groups, doing three reps of ten for each task. so you can do the math, but i can tell you what it equals: my arms are sore! and my legs from the bike and the elliptical machine i did after to "warm down", as i like to call it. but it's a good sore. we're going back tonight so he can show me the machines and exercises to do for my friday muscle group (legs), as he goes to the gym at school on fridays, since he's there anyways. so i have to motivate myself to go on friday. i didn't do them yesterday, but i plan to do abs every time i go, as well. they have a torture device that sort of inverts you on a slab and you can do sit-ups on it--they have another one for obliques, but i'm gonna have to work up to that one--it's like upside down sideways sit-ups--real fun for a fat lady to try doing in a room of hot body building young men. woohoo! actually as i was working out yesterday i developed a minor fantasy in which i become the chubby mascot of the body builders and they all support me and help me with my form and watch me shrink into some amazingly fit, healthy woman who could run a marathon (or something like that which doesn't involve actual running!)
i'm excited to be going to the gym again and trying not to hear the niggling voice that says--you went before and didn't lose ONE DAMN POUND! besides, even if i didn't lose any weight (although that seems impossible!!!) it would still be good for me to work out. right? right.
i am grateful for:
my muscles
my breath
my heart
my husband
my girls who so willingly watched jubal for almost three hours!
and i'm grateful that jubal was mellow that whole time and here's a little prayer that it always works so well.